The dozens of exhibitors in the [Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)] summit’s showroom, at a Washington convention center overlooking the Potomac River, ranged from nuclear and ocean-wave power to improved gasoline engines for cars. But they all have something in common: As ARPA-E award recipients, they’re expected to be laser-focused on using their grants to move a potentially viable product toward the marketplace.

Some of the projects push technological frontiers.

The Palo Alto Research Center, a Xerox company, is working with Sandia National Laboratories to develop a “micro chiplet printer” that could dramatically improve solar panels.

Dr. Janos Veres, program manager, novel and printed electronics, Electronic Materials and Devices Laboratory at the Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (PARC), said that a little more than 10 years ago, printed displays, printed solar and even fully printed RFID were the promise. “They represented existing markets that were well understood,” Dr. Veres continued. “Significant investments were made in both by large companies as well as startups. These directions did not take off, mostly because…”

The ability to communicate with consumers is not necessarily through visual keys alone. Audio capabilities are also an excellent approach. However, the development of cost-effective, mass producible, truly thin speakers has yet to take off.

PARC, a Xerox company, may have the key to unlocking this technology. In conjunction with FlexTech, a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, PARC researchers are working on a one-year project developing paper-like smart tags printed flexible audio speakers that could be used for smart tags, wearables and much more.

One of the best-known names in tech research and development, PARC got its start in 1970 as a research division within office printing giant Xerox. Now the company partners with businesses and government agencies to bring innovations to market. A prime example is its work in the burgeoning smart packaging industry, which combines flexible printed electronics, sensors, and software to boost supply-chain efficiencies for brands and add consumer value.

In the opening keynote address, Xerox Chief Technology Officer Steve Hoover and PARC CEO Tolga Kurtoglu discussed how technology will open a myriad of new opportunities and markets for the printing industry.

Xerox has a number of tools and strategies in place to support its customers on this technology journey. PARC is clearly taking the digital printing market even further. Kurtoglu discussed some printing advancements that go far beyond traditional paper. He talked about functional printing advancements that bring additional functionality to what is produced. Application examples of functional printing include printed electronics and RFID.

Swinburne has signed a new partnership agreement with PARC, a Xerox company, to globalise the university’s strengths in data science, data driven manufacturing systems and smart structures.

“We’re excited to work with Swinburne to develop innovative programs in the areas that are impacting the growth of the IoT and industrial IoT,” PARC’s Director of Business Development Aki Ohashi, says.

Self-destruct options from the Mission: Impossible movies could become a reality for even the most common smartphones and laptops used by government officials or corporate employees. A new self-destruct mechanism can destroy electronics within 10 seconds through wireless commands or the triggering of certain sensors.

Creating a self-destruct option that works quickly and is compatible with today’s semiconductor chips is no small trick. In 2015, Xerox PARC showed off a self-destructing chip made on strained glass that could shatter within 10 seconds when triggered by a laser. That was developed as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (Darpa’s) Vanishing Programmable Resources program.

A new research project funded by DARPA, the United States military’s experimental technology arm, has developed an autonomous drone made out of cardboard that can fly twice the distance of any fixed-range aircraft because it’s disposable. The drone only goes one way.

ICARUS is part of DARPA’s larger Vanishing Programmable Resources initiative, which funds research into hardware that can dissolve and become unusable when triggered.

Watch a video demonstrating dissolving glass developed by PARC, a Xerox research and development company that has been a recipient of funding under DARPA’s VAPR program.

PARC, the research company owned by Xerox, has pioneered a lot of technologies for the personal computer and mobile revolutions. And now it’s moving on to the Internet of Things.

Today, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is announcing it has secured money from the U.S. Department of Energy to create sticky sensors that can be used to monitor the Internet of Things. You just peel the labels off these sensors and stick them in places where they can wirelessly monitor other devices by radio frequency power.

Researchers at PARC aim to develop a platform for distributed sensors made on a flexible substrate and powered by a 900-MHz RF link. The work is one of 18 building-automation projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy geared to reduce wasted energy.

PARC hopes to stage demonstrations within 18 months of peel-and-stick temperature and humidity sensors and an RF hub to power them. The sensors target costs of less than $10 while the hub would send micro-joules of energy distances initially up to 10 meters and cost less than $100.

The future of the Internet of Things (IoT) is clear, according to the inventors of the graphical user interface (GUI), the computer mouse, the computer "desktop," object-oriented programming, amorphous silicon. The clear future of IoT will be transparent, flexible and self-powering, said Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) program manager of novel and printed electronics, Janos Veres, at the MEMS Executive Congress 2016 (Scottsdale, Arizona).

Imagine getting the latest smartwatch or a high-tech heart attack warning detector from your inkjet printer. Researchers have taken a step in this direction by printing cheap, reliable arrays of transistors—the key components of modern electronics—and using them to carry out elementary computing tasks. The work might someday help usher in a new era of organic, flexible consumer electronics.

...imperfections might be ironed out as a product moves to commercialization, says Janos Veres, a flexible electronics expert at PARC, a research institution in Palo Alto, California. He applauds the study for showing a novel way to print and protect organic circuit components, and imagines future labels or sensors containing stacks of not just two, but many transistors, perhaps working in concert with silicon chips or other technologies. “Ultimately we do see the opportunity to print microchips,” he says.

Still a young market with its potential yet to be defined, the global flexible electronics market is poised to see compounded annual growth rate of close to 67% between 2016 and 2020, according to Technavio analysts.

It helps that a US Department of Defense-backed organization is also pushing the envelope in this area.

NextFlex, America's Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) Manufacturing Innovation Institute, recently announced the first four recipients (out of eight contracts awarded) from the institute's inaugural project call. Among them is Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and their partner, University of California at San Diego.

“We are very interested and curious about democratizing manufacturing,” said Janos Veres, program manager for novel and printed electronics at Palo Alto Research Center Inc., a unit of Xerox Corp.Flexible electronics, he said, “will open up a whole new raft of business models.”

NASA recently reported that it spotted the major methane gas leak at Porter Ranch, California, from space. That is a pretty big leak. In fact, the Porter Rancher leak is the biggest natural gas disaster in U.S. history.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), PARC, a Xerox company, is deep into developing a methane detection system that uses sensor arrays fabricated on polymer substrates that contain printed low cost sensors designed to detect “fingerprints” for methane and other gases.

DOE’s BENEFIT Initiative Seeks Low-Cost Building SensorsThe U.S. Department of Energy is funding three multi-year projects to create either passive or active RFID sensors that can collect temperature, humidity or other environmental data for use by building-management systems.31 August 2016 | RFID Journal by Claire Swedberg

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has launched three RFID-based sensor projects as part of a $19 million investigation into identifying ways in which technology can make energy efficiency more accessible in homes, offices, schools, restaurants and stores.

PARC, a research and development company owned by Xerox, is developing a sensor with printed antennas using technology devised through its Novel Electronics program, according to David Schwartz, PARC's manager of energy devices and systems. The data collected from the sensors will be managed by software provided by building controls solutions company Energy ETC. The sensors are expected to measure temperature and humidity levels.

The U.S. military wants drones, gliders or other airborne delivery vehicles to vanish once they safely send supplies or intelligence to troops, aid workers or agents in hostile territory or behind enemy lines. And researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are working on it.

DARPA expects to distribute about $8 million in grants. In June, it awarded a $2.3 million grant to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center; a $2.9 million grant to DZYNE Technologies, an aircraft design, production and analytics firm headquartered in Arizona; and a $3 million grant to MORSE Corp., an engineering firm in Cambridge, Mass.

Bob Street, PARC Senior Research Fellow and Manager of the Printed Electronic Devices area, presented on printed hybrid arrays for health monitoring at SEMICON West 2016. “There are many and various ways that you can do health monitoring,” explained Street. “There will be sensors, and local electronics with amplifiers and logic and switches. One of the prime features of printing is that it is a versatile system for depositing different materials.”

Janos Veres, Novel and Printed Electronics Program Lead at PARC, a Xerox Company, describes how the Xerox Innovation Group is working to improve production techniques for smart devices with 3D printing.

FlexTech, a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, today announced the formal completion of three flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) R&D projects under its U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) technology investment agreement. The completed projects are with ENrG for a flexible ceramic substrate; nScrypt and NovaCentrix for a next-generation three-dimensional (3D) printing tool for creating complex and functional objects; and PARC, a Xerox company, for a flexible sensor platform. Projects ranged from 12-18 months and were managed by a member of the FlexTech Technical Council, which is a team of experts in flexible, hybrid and printed electronics technologies.

Xerox, the American business and technology corporation, is developing 3D printed circuit board technology for “smart devices” that can sense and interact with their environment. Janos Veres of PARC, A Xerox Company, just gave an update on the company’s progress.

The MIT Technology Review reports that researchers at Xerox PARC are working on a digital printing process that could reduce the cost of mass producing concentrated photovoltaic systems. The process could increase efficiency dramatically by using lenses to concentrate the light onto small cells in the panel.

The technology giant that’s synonymous with photocopied documents has set its sights on highly efficient solar panels.

Researchers at PARC, an R&D-focused subsidiary of Xerox, say they’re developing a new digital printing process that could make it much cheaper to mass-produce concentrated solar photovoltaic systems. Such systems can dramatically increase the efficiency of solar cells by using lenses to concentrate and focus the sunlight onto small cells.

One of the partners publicly working with DARPA to develop and demonstrate a “disappearing electronics” platform as part of VAPR is PARC, a Xerox company. Their approach is called DUST, a.k.a., Disintegration Upon Stress Release Trigger, which has obvious implications for the military.

Not surprisingly, PARC’s technology is intended to be compatible with commercial-off-the-shelf electronic devices and fabrication processes, which should lead to a wide range of complex transient functionality.

And because the company specializes in developing sophisticated electronics with a focus on novel form factors and manufacturing approaches, as well as reduced size and cost, DUST is a natural fit for PARC. Expect to see transient devices used for applications such as objects embedded with sensors to support the fast-growing Internet of Things (IoT) or as a destructive option to enhance data security.

The Flexible Electronics and Display Center (FEDC) and PARC recently announced that they have successfully manufactured what they claim to be the world's largest flexible x-ray detector prototypes using advanced thin film transistors (TFTs) - based on a-Si technology.

Ten research organizations have been tapped by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop technologies and processes for assembling nano-scale building blocks for materials and millimeter-scale components.

DARPA announced the awards at the end of December under its "Atoms to Products" (A2P) initiative designed to leverage unique "atomic-scale" characteristics like much lower melting points and greater heat resistance.

Boston University, Notre Dame, HRL and PARC form a working group on optical meta-material assembly. One initiative calls for Boston University researchers to develop a technique to "spray paint" atoms with nano-scale precision to build tunable optical meta-materials for the "photonic battlefield."

The Flexible Electronics and Display Center (FEDC) at Arizona State University and PARC, a Xerox company, announced that they have successfully manufactured the world's largest flexible X-ray detector prototypes using advanced thin film transistors.

Measuring 10 diagonal inches, the device has been jointly developed at the ASU center and PARC in conjunction with the Army Research Lab and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The device will be used to advance the development of flexible X-ray detectors for use in thin, lightweight, conformable and highly rugged devices.

In this episode of "The Future of Work Show," Jacob Morgan sits down with PARC CEO Stephen Hoover and some other PARC employees to talk about everything from robots and artificial intelligence to batteries and fuel cells, to water and lasers, to printed/large area electronics and optics, to the freelancer economy, millennials and, of course, innovation.

When it comes to prostheses, the days of metal-hook hands and wooden legs are long over. But while robotic limbs have changed the lives of millions of amputees, the high-tech appendages still don’t compare with the real thing, mainly because prosthetics are purely functional. They allow a person to walk, pick up items and carry out other daily tasks—but without a sense of touch.

A team of scientists at Stanford University and the Palo Alto Research Center are working to change this. The group has developed a special “skin” that can be added to artificial limbs that may allow a person with a prosthetic hand to actually feel a handshake.

Prosthetic limbs can restore an amputee’s ability to walk or grip objects, but they haven’t yet been able to restore a person’s sense of touch. Researchers at Stanford University have taken a step closer to this type of prosthetic by creating an electronic skin that responds to pressure changes and transmits signals via nerve cells, much as human skin does.

Each sensor is connected to an organic circuit printed with the help of researchers at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The circuit converts the pressure signal into a series of electrical pulses and increases pulse frequency in response to increasing pressure.

PARC materials scientist Greg Whiting said his team was initially inspired to make self-destructing electronics that could be built with off-the-shelf products. The researchers considered a number of methods of destruction, from vaporization to dissolving, but "we approached this from the idea of, 'Could we take an off-the-shelf chip, if you like, and, without doing too much to it, could we make it become transient?'"

"Imagine a near future where there will be a wireless sensor on the bottom of every shampoo, detergent, and medication container. It will tell you how much product is left and trigger a replacement order once it gets to 10% full or approaches its expiration date.

Now imagine a future laundry detergent dispenser that is connected wirelessly to sensors in the washing machine and can mix multiple channels of active ingredients dynamically to suit the conditions of the wash and optimize the cleaning process."

Chips off the Old BlockBorrowing from photocopier technology, researchers find a way to make an electronics printer6 December 2014 | The Economist by Paul Markillie

"PRINTING has come a long way since Johannes Gutenberg perfected the commerical use of the printing press around 1439. Since then, movable type has given way to other processes, such as lithography and screen printing. In the digital era, laser, and inkjet printers arrived. Then 3D printers emerged to make solid objects by building up layers of material. What would be nice is a machine that could also print the electronics that go into devices. Now one group of researchers has succeeded in demonstrating how just such a machine might work."

"Imagine this scenario: instead of IV drips, you could just stick on a patch to have meds delivered into your system. That's the kind of future PARC (Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center) envisions.

Printed tech is something that PARC's team is workign on right now, with small smart patches that will work to both monitor health parameters and deliver medications. It would help in monitoring patients, along with treament and diagnostics, and definitely be a more comfortable option for patients. The less needles the better, we say."

"PARC recently discussed its vision of the future with printalbe tech and it intends to lead the way by creating small smart patches. These miniature wearable devices will either monitor health parameters or deliver medication in controlled doses to the user.

The patch should be able to help in the diagnostics, monitoring and treatment for a patient."

Micro ChipletsPARC's technique of mincing chips into printer ink could revolutionize the way electronics are made8 August 2014 | MIT Technology Review by David Talbot

"In the same research lab where the ethernet, laser printer, and graphical user interface were born, engineers are forging an entirely new way to assemble electronic devices—a technique that could be faster, cheaper, and more versatile.

Typically, chips are made in bulk on semiconductor wafers and then cut into individual units and placed on motherboards inside computers and other devices. But researchers at PARC, in Palo Alto, California, envision doing something different with the wafers: chopping them up into hairs-width “chiplets,” mixing them into an ink, and guiding the tiny pieces electrostatically to just the right spot and orientation on a substrate, from which a roller could pick them up and print them."

Among the principal challenges facing developers is transitioning printed electronics research conducted in a laboratory to meet the demands of large-scale production. To better understand and address these issues, Clemson University and PARC, a Xerox company, collaborated and recently completed a FlexTech Alliance-funded project to investigate the scaling up and printing of functional devices on a commercial printing press. This project focused on the gravure printing process.

Just the TicketSmart labels: The 40-year-old barcode has a new, more intelligent rival that can store information, display and transmit it8 March 2014 | The Economist

IN JUNE 1974 history was made at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, with a ten-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. It was the first time a commercial item bearing a Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned by a cashier at the checkout. Forty years on, what became known as a barcode has transformed the world of commerce by providing reliable product identification, tracking and pricing. Nearly everything now comes with a barcode.

As revolutionary as it was, the barcode has limited abilities. It can impart only the information it was printed with, represented by a series of horizontal stripes or a matrix pattern that can be read by an optical device, like a laser. The next generation of labelling will be more adept, containing tiny printable electronics able to generate, store and share information. These smart labels are about to become a big part of “the internet of things”.

Since it was founded in 1970 by Xerox Corporation, the Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, has played a key role in changing the way people live. Considering the everyday items that PARC had a hand in inventing - laser printing, liquid crystal displays (LCD), graphical user interface and the Ethernet to name but a few – PARC is in a unique position to develop new innovations.

The fact that PARC is heavily interested in the field of printed electronics (PE) is of note, as the independent institute - it spun out of Xerox in 2002 - has a history of success. The company has been interested in the potential of thin film electronics, developing printed thin-film transistors utilizing amorphous silicon on flexible substrates as early as 1983, and created some of the first plastic semiconductors in 2003.

Leon Wong, PARC director, market strategy, noted that PARC has formed partnerships in a number of markets where PE can play a role.

Leon Wong, director of PARC Inc., A Xerox Company, in Palo Alto, Calif., focusing on technological innovation, said additive manufacturing, which extends to both 3-D printing and printed electronics will indeed change the world — it’s just “going to take some time.”

“Much of the applications are prototyping at this point, but the enormous potential for 3-D printing is everywhere —a lot of it just depends on what your business is.”

"The total market for printed, organic, and flexible electronics is projected to grow from more than $16 billion this year to $76.8 billion in the next 10 years, according to a new report from IDTechEx. Printed electronics will allow manufacturers to replace some components with cheaper, higher performing alternatives or even completely replace a conventionally-manufactured device.

Printed and flexible sensors are already a $6.3 billion business. The largest market is biosensors, used in disposable glucose test strips which are helping diabetics monitor their health.

Developers of printed electronics had to overcome significant technological hurdles."

"Oskar van Deventer used to dream up Rubik’s Cube-like puzzles so complex that they were physically impossible to make. The ones that were possible, he painstakingly crafted out of wood or plastic or spent weeks waiting for a manufacturing facility to get back to him with a prototype.

Then he came across 3D printing and discovered he could print any design himself; even the previously impossible ones. Today, his 3D printed puzzles can sell for hundreds of dollars on sites like Shapeways.

It’s an often-told story regarding the future of consumer 3D printing. Just dream up something — anything — and then you’ll be able to print it. That reality hasn’t materialized yet, but the technology is developing fast. People are printing home goods, experimenting with printing food and developing next-generation printers that will embed advanced materials like electronics within printed objects.

“People are using it today,” said Stratasys CIO Scott Crump at the recent Inside 3D Printing conference in San Jose. “Hobbyists are using it, makers are using it. The use in the home is probably going to start more. …”

So 3D printers will undoubtedly play a larger role in our future, but to what extent?"

According to many experts, 3D printing promises to revolutionize the way numerous products are designed and mass-produced. Among other things, the technology can be used to create connectors, terminals and other wiring harness components. And, some day not too far down the road, 3D-printed parts may even eliminate the need for traditional wire and cable assemblies.

Additive manufacturing “prints” an object from a digital file by depositing one layer of material on top of another. It allows companies to more easily manufacture complex shapes and structures that have been traditionally been difficult to make with plastic-injection molding and other old-school processes.

While 3D printing holds tremendous promise, it’s not about to be used in mass-production any time soon. That’s because electrical wiring systems are different than other types of products where the technology is being used, such as creating custom jigs and fixtures.

"When envisioning the spacecraft of the future, you may conjure up images of the Enterprise, or Serenity. But one of NASA’s latest projects being carried out in partnership with the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) suggests that the future may take a rather unexpected shape: small paper-thin printed electronics that will float across the surface of foreign planets. Once complete, the craft, which will consist largely of heat and light sensors, will be ideal for testing the environment on the surface of Mars."

"PARC — home of the laser printer, ethernet, the graphical user interface and the Alto computer — is best known for its role in Silicon Valley’s past. But in late July, a window in the belly of the center’s Palo Alto campus provided a look at the future: printable electronics that could someday go into space.

The window led to PARC’s clean room, where bodysuit-protected researchers milled about while a printer the size of an office copy machine whirred. For three or four months now, a PARC team has been working with NASA on printing heat and light sensors that would be ideal for environmental sensing on the surface of Mars. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory lead researcher Kendra Short said that eventually they’ll be able to print other types of electronics that take in solar energy, communicate wirelessly and more."

"Today's trip to PARC, a Xerox company was awesome...but here's the coolest thing I saw. They are printing electronic circuits in what amounts to a big inkjet printer.

...What did I take away from the visit...? Easy: Innovation hasn't stopped yet.

...Read more about the printed circuits they are designing (as you can see, they are flexible and low cost to make -- first uses will be little electronic ID tags that can be printed on shipping labels. Imagine wine shipments that will arrive and will say 'this shipment never got too hot or cold on its trip here')."

"The NBMC has released its first Request for Proposals (RFP) focused on developing a technology platform for Human Performance Monitors for military and civilian personnel in high stress situations such as pilots, special operations personnel, firefighters, and trauma care providers. Organized by FlexTech Alliance under a grant from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) the RFP comes only 3 month since the group officially formed its technical and leadership teams. The consortium members, working with AFRL, issued this RFP to focus on component development and integration for a lightweight, low-cost, conformal and wearable patch."

"Although continuous improvement is still needed with novel materials and innovative process technologies, Wong predicts the future looks bright for printed electronics (PE). 'There’s a future convergence coming in which integrated 3D and PE printers will create smart objects, such as bandages that offer medical diagnostics,' he explains.

Wong believes that printed electromechanical items are not that far off. 'Mechanical and electronics manufacturing will all occur under one roof some day,' he says. 'That will result in hybrid products that disrupt traditional supply chains.'”

"Three industry leaders have committed to chair the conference and share their experience in this emerging field of electronics: Ross Bringans, vice president at PARC, A Xerox Company (Palo Alto Research Center), Michael Idacavage, vice president of business development at Esstech, Inc., and Robert Miller, senior business manager at EMD Chemicals.

'The Flex Conference has built a well-deserved reputation for excellent technical content and as a very effective place to meet partners, discover new approaches, and to be inspired in our research and development of new offerings,' states Bringans."

'When you think about it like that, the potential of this is way beyond being able to make just a smart label. ... You look back at the early days of computing, (when) people weren't exactly sure what computers could do for you. Is it really going to go in your mobile phone? Is it really going to go into your eyeware? And now it has.'"

"Got a large roll-to-roll printer that you're not sure what to do with? You might have a future in electronics manufacturing.

It's still very early days, but researchers at PARC have been taking significant strides in developing a new technology that makes it possible to print electronic components like sensors, transistors, light-emitters, smart tags, flexible batteries, memory, smart labels, and more."

"New York Times reporter John Markoff describes in today’s Science Times how a new technique developed at PARC will print computing power onto a flexible surface.

Demonstrating what PARC CEO Stephen Hoover wrote for Techonomy last year—that 'a lot of the opportunities we’re going to find in the ‘Internet of things’ are going to be about how to embed intelligence at very low cost in a distributed way into the world'—one potential of the technology Markoff describes is to take 3D-printing to the next level, by manufacturing not just a structure, but also its electronic functionality."

"Imagine if silicon chips were smaller than a grain of sand and could be made using a laser printer: everything under the sun could be made unobtrusively smart. But that's not science fiction, and you don't have to imagine too hard—because researchers at PARC have already done it."

"The technology, on display at PARC, is part of a new system for making electronics, one that takes advantage of a Xerox invention from the 1970s: the laser printer.

If perfected, it could lead to desktop manufacturing plants that 'print' the circuitry for a wide array of electronic devices — flexible smartphones that won’t break when you sit on them; a supple, pressure-sensitive skin for a new breed of robot hands; smart-sensing medical bandages that could capture health data and then be thrown away...

The new manufacturing system the PARC researchers envision could be used to build custom computers one at a time, or as part of a 3-D printing system that makes smart objects with computing woven right into them...if the PARC researchers are successful, they will have thrown out 50 years of Silicon Valley conventional wisdom."

"In fact, PARC is already developing ways to print electronics and to print mechanical structures and electronics together, said Stephen Hoover, chief executive of PARC. He predicted the initial applications will emerge in about two years, including wearable sensors that can be put onto any product. Other possibilities include printed batteries, memory chips and displays...

3D printing is just one part of a larger trend democratizing design and production, Hoover of PARC said. 'We can imagine assembly automation and 3D printing combining' with other automation techniques into 'a virtual supply chain,' Hoover said."

The Wall Street Journal has named PARC and Thinfilm as runner-up for The Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award in the Semiconductors and Electronics category. The winners and runners-up represent disruptive breakthroughs from conventional ideas and methods.

The Wall Street Journal received 536 applications from more than two dozen countries. A team of editors and reporters reviewed the entries and forwarded the 172 most promising to an independent panel of judges from venture-capital firms, universities, and companies. From that pool, the judges chose a total of 37 winners and runners-up in 18 categories.

PARC and Thinfilm received the runner-up award for Thinfilm Addressable Memory, the first printed electronic rewritable memory. Thinfilm Addressable Memory works as a technology platform for a wide range of printed electronic system products, such as smart tags, that combine memory with other printed components.

The Mobile 15Our picks for the most innovative companies18 September 2012 | GigaOM by Staff

"(ThinFilm's) partnership with PARC enabled the circuits to have not just memory but also the logic needed to turn the memory into something that can execute programs. That, in turn, has helped ThinFilm make the leap from the novelty toy market to a broader set of industries...

ThinFilm’s innovation is the melding of cheap printed memory with printed logic circuits from PARC. The printed circuits are cheap and can be printed onto packaging for food, medical devices, drugs or other goods. With only the memory, a pill bottle might have the ability when scanned to indicate if it had been stored at a temperature that rendered the medicine inside ineffective. Once logic and eventually a radio is added, then the same pill bottle might be able to send an alert when temperatures are veering into the danger zone."

"An integrated printed sensor system is under development with a new grant from FlexTech Alliance, which supports displays and flexible, printed electronics. The project leverages commercial development work currently underway between PARC and Thinfilm Electronics on designing a printed sensor platform and will integrate temperature sensing as well as assess an oxygen sensor being developed at the University of California at Berkeley.

Earlier this year, Thinfilm Electronics and PARC won the FlexTech Alliance Innovation Award for the world's first working prototype of a printed, non-volatile memory device addressed with complementary organic circuits, the equivalent of CMOS circuitry."

"Now, in 2012, PARC is celebrating another milestone: the 10-year anniversary of becoming incorporated as a wholly owned yet independent subsidiary of Xerox. Currently, PARC has a long list of customers, but it still does most of its business with its parent company and government agencies...There also has been a lot of recent innovation at PARC of which you might not be aware. Here is a selection of 10 highly successful projects—culled from several dozen candidates—that were created, funded and empowered at PARC in the last 10 years."

"Printing electronics is not new; screen printing, lithography, inkjet and other processes have long been used to manufacture circuit boards and components. But the technologies are improving rapidly and now allow electronics to be printed on a greater variety of surfaces. In the latest developments, electronics printing is being combined with 'additive manufacturing', which uses machines popularly known as 3D printers to build solid objects out of material, one layer at a time...

[PARC] is developing ways to use such inks. These can print circuits for various components, including flexible display screens, sensors and antennae for radio-frequency security tags. With the emergence of additive-manufacturing techniques, it starts to become possible to print such things directly onto the product itself, says Janos Veres, the manager of PARC’s printed-electronics team."

"Flexible electronics is an emerging field of science and manufacturing technology, which enables planting of electronic devices onto conformable plastic substrates. ...driven by the global demand for lighter and smaller electronic products that consume lesser power. Due to the fact that these devices are more shock resistant, cost-effectively manufactured, and can be flexed or bended, they have the capability of being integrated into portable devices, clothing, and packaging materials.

"Plastics packaging powerhouse Bemis Company Inc. and Thinfilm Electronics have partnered to create a flexible sensing platform for the packaging market. This new category of packaging will collect and wirelessly communicate sensor information, for use by food, consumer product and healthcare companies.

...'Bemis has stated the Thinfilm technology could eventually be a component of every package they manufacture,' Sutija said. 'The majority of Bemis packages are used by the food industry, which means the Internet of Things, objects that talk to you, is soon part of your every day life.' The Bemis intelligent packaging platform is expected to be commercially available in 2014.

The first to commercialize printed rewritable memory, Thinfilm is creating printed system products that will include memory, sensing, display and wireless communication. Thinfilm is working together with PARC on developing a printed temperature sensor."

"Thinfilm Electronics moved a step closer to making the 'Internet of Things' a reality, announcing a deal with U.S. packaging giant Bemis Co. today to create a printed electronics system for consumer product, healthcare and food companies who want to tag, track and collect information wirelessly about the products they ship.

What does that mean exactly? Thinfilm has been working on low-cost sensor tags containing rewritable memory that can be placed on anything...and that can collect a bevy of information.

...Thinfilm, which paired up with Xerox’s PARC R&D spin off to help develop its printed electronics technology, has already been working on creating 'inexpensive, integrated time-temperature sensors for use in monitoring perishable goods and pharmaceuticals'. The deal with Bemis builds on that work to create a 'customizable sensor platform' that Bemis can adapt for its customers. Thinfilm and Bemis said they plan to make the Bemis Intelligent Packaging Platform available next year."

"Thin Film Electronics, a company that makes wafer-thin printed circuits that can be built into packaging materials, and Bemis, a manufacturer of both consumer products and wholesale packaging, have signed an agreement that will add circuits to your cereal box. Or maybe sensors to your salad bags. Or digital intelligence to disposable diapers.

The Oslo-based Thinfilm has been in business since the mid-90s. It has been manufacturing thin-film memory chips that provide about 20 bits of storage, which were used in toys and games. But it has been adding more memory and has a partnership with Xerox PARC that added transistors to its circuit, thereby giving its chips enough intelligence to track inventory or send environmental data from a sensor back to the network. ...the idea of smarter circuits that are still cheap enough to be used in packaging are integral to creating an internet of things."

It’s a future coming sooner than people think, said Peter Weijmarshausen, the CEO of 3-D printing start-up Shapeways. Fresh off $6.2 million in new funding for Shapeways, Weijmarshausen spoke with GigaOM about where 3-D printing is going, how it parallels the software industry and how far the technology can take us into the future.

…Another big challenge is that there’s still a limited number of materials… But he said more of these materials are becoming available. And researchers at PARC are working on printable electronics for things like RAM, sensors and transistors. That, he said, could lead to consumers creating their own phones or MP3 players housed in cases of their own design."

"For decades, digital technology has been synonymous with silicon. But maybe for not much longer. The age of printed electronics may soon be upon us. Following years of hype and development, technologies that allow chips and other electronic components to be made using techniques akin to inkjet printing -- rather than by lithography or other standard methods -- may finally be reaching maturity...

Part of the challenge the industry faced was that it was developing individual components, said Davor Sutija, Thinfilm's CEO. While the components might cost less than their silicon-based counterparts, the cost advantage was often lost when they were combined with other parts. But by using technology pioneered by PARC and teaming up with other printed electronics companies, Thinfilm has developed a way to connect and combine components to create a complete printed system."

"The message of the day was clear with the first words to greet guests at the registration table (via both conference workers and a commemorative bookmark). 'Just wanted to let you know, "Xerox PARC" is so 10 years ago. Today, we're "PARC, a Xerox company".'

PARC's Power of 10 is a year-long series of events, including public-friendly guest presentations and this half-day conference, to commemorate the company's first ten years of independent operation. In 2002 Xerox incorporated PARC as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary, shifting the R&D pioneers toward an open innovation business model that took center stage on Thursday.

...Chesbrough's point was best emphasized after his presentation. The rest of the afternoon featured panels with representatives from a few PARC-collaborators. They all shared their projects, but the most eye-catching were Nicole Tricoukes, Senior Maverick at Motorola Solutions, and Davor Sutija, CEO of Thin Film."

"It has taken decades to reach this point because it requires the invention of new semiconductor manufacturing technologies, which have to be reused in ways that apply to the new kinds of materials. The good thing is that putting a little bit of electronics into flexible or wearable materials can result in a lot of new applications that don’t cost all that much to build. Flexible electronics is still looking for home-run applications, but it’s not as pie-in-the sky as it sounds. The manufacturing has improved to the point where simple memory devices cost just pennies."

"Until then, flexible displays will be visible in smaller, more modest designs such as smart security tags, shelf and food labels, and loyalty cards with memory, says Janos Veres, who manages the printed electronics team at PARC.

PARC, the storied research center that inspired many of the features in the original Macintosh computer, is tinkering with plastic memory, chips on consumer goods packaging, sensors on helmets, and more.One project is a wearable patch with sensors to monitor a patient's heart rate, temperature and blood pressure. PARC is also looking at the concept of a flexible battery to save energy and space, Veres says."

"Thinfilm Addressable Memory, the result of an extensive collaboration involving PARC, a Xerox company, Solvay and Polyera, is a significant step toward the Internet of Things (IoT), a technology trend identified by Gartner as one of the Top 10 Strategic Trends of the decade."

"PARC is a pioneer in the development and commercialization of thin film transistors, circuits, and sensors. With a 40 year history of commercial innovation, PARC scientists have a deep knowledge of printing technology applied in domains such as displays, image sensors, and medical sensors, PARC's technical expertise and facility support printed dielectrics, nanoparticle metals, organic, oxide, and silicon (amorphous, polycrystalline, printed nanowire) semiconductors. Solid State Technology editor Pete Singer caught up with Janos Veres, area manager for printed electronics in the electronic materials and devices laboratory at PARC."

"A plastic temperature-recording sticker that could provide detailed histories of crates of food or bottles of vaccine would be the first to use all-printed electronics components—including memory, logic, and even the battery. The cost per sticker could be only 30 cents or less.

Thin Film Electronics, based in Oslo, Norway, aims to marry the company's printed memory with printed transistors from PARC in Palo Alto, California; a printed temperature sensor from PST Sensors, a spin-off from the University of Cape Town in South Africa; and a printed battery from Imprint Energy, a spin-off from the University of California, Berkeley. The first prototype using all the components is expected later this year."

"The culmination of several decades of R&D by ThinFilm Electronics, with some help from PARC’s printed transistors, the multilayer tags combine a year’s worth of battery power, sensors and a small display, and will initially be used to show a temperature record of perishable food and medications.

"PARC, which once served only Xerox, now has an expanding list of technologies in development with outside partners that include Fujitsu, Motorola, NEC Display Solutions, Microsoft, Samsung, SolFocus, and Oracle. The change in strategy has helped turn it from a multimillion-dollar financial sinkhole into a modest, but growing, innovation business.

For PARC, the partnerships are signs that open innovation is working. 'There are plenty of great ideas at PARC, but you learn early on that execution is often the hard part—execution and timing,' says St. Claire. '...You almost have to be as innovative in the commercialization—especially when you have game-changing technologies—as on the technology side.'"

"'For example,' Sutija says. 'Think of your car. Right now you rely on a maintenance schedule for replacements, repairs, service, etc. But imagine that the individual components of your car can be tagged – your brakes can tell you when they need to be replaced by using its own sensors and reporting the information.'

That’s the future that Thinfilm is working towards through a new partnership with PARC, a Xerox company. Last October, the two companies announced that they had created a printable chip using PARC’s transistors and Thinfilm’s memory to create a low-cost, low-power memory that’s capable of being subject to programming logic."

"IDTechEx recently visited PARC in California and learnt of its business model today, culture, and legacy pioneering technological change...among many other industry contributions.

Below, I share some updates on what IDTechEx has been observing at PARC. Taken together, these updates convey an important movement beyond the enabling materials, processes, equipment, and components."

"Thin Film Electronics ASA and PARC have combined their printed memory and organic addressing regime, respectively, to create a working prototype of a printed non-volatile memory. The ferroelectric polymer storage is addressed with p- and n-type organic circuits similar to CMOS circuitry."

"Printed electronics have been advancing in bits and pieces for years -- a crude processor here, a basic memory device there. Now researchers at PARC and the Norwegian company Thinfilm Electronics have announced a printed electronic device that, for the first time, marries transistors with memory.

...Earlier this year, Thinfilm showed off a handheld device capable of reading cards printed with circuits that store 20 bits of data. In May, the company announced engineering deals with two major toy manufacturers who plan to use its printable memory.

...The prototype is a 'building block' that can be used for a number of different applications, says Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx, a research firm. 'There has been a huge effort on printing transistors globally,' Das says, 'but very poor effort on making useful building blocks like this, which can be used horizontally for many applications.' The announcement by PARC and Thinfilm, he says, is 'very good news.'"

"Cheaper, two-way circuits may change the way objects and phones carry and transmit information, but their success depends on NFC's wider adoption in the mobile payment marketplace.

The Addressable Memory transistors by Thinfilm and PARC are printed on thin plastic and cost a fraction of their silicon equivalents, RFID tags. They can also both send and receive data from smartphones, unlike the passive product labels available on today's market.

The chips are set to be unveiled in 2012, with plans to have them wirelessly broadcast information about products by 2013."

"...produced a working prototype of a printed ferroelectric polymer non-volatile memory that is addressed with p- and n-type organic circuits, the equivalent of CMOS circuitry.

The companies claimed that the combination of Thin Film's printed memory and PARC's organic addressing regime is the key to producing roll-to-roll printable memory that can be used in the Internet-of-Things where everything has an IP address and is connected to the Internet via a smart tag. Such smart tags require rewritable nonvolatile memory that is low cost and supports integration with sensors and other electronic components, which this technology supports, the companies said.

...The prototype will be publicly demonstrated at PARC on Monday, Oct. 24, in conjunction with a visit from the Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry, His Excellency Trond Giske."

"Thinfilm and PARC's breakthrough is a technology that can print not only memory onto, well, thin films, but can now also print transistors to address and manage that memory.

…Up until Friday's announcement, Thinfilm's non-volatile, ferroelectric memory was completely passive – it just sat there, holding those 20 bits in its memory cells. To be rewritten or read, it needed to be accessed by an external device which used one access pad for each memory cell. What Thinfilm and PARC have now developed is the ability to print not only the memory cells, but to also print the logic onto the same substrate needed to manage those memory cells.

…Thinfilm and PARC aren't working in a vacuum. 'There are a number of companies, [Thinfilm CEO] Sutija told us, 'that have been working on printed sensors, printed power sources, printed displays, and we're going to be active in build an ecosystem with these other partners to be able to then create integrated products.'"

"Thin Film Electronics ASA...has developed a way to add computing to its circuits through a partnership with Xerox PARC. This means it can offer thin, disposable tracking tags for a few cents apiece, and it could soon provide a valuable component for the Internet of things.

Thin Film is an Oslo-based company that has been in business since the mid-90s. It has been manufacturing thin-film memory chips that provide about 20 kilobytes of storage, which were used in toys and games. But thanks to its partnership with PARC it has added transistors to its circuits, which gives the chips a soupcon of intelligence — enough to perhaps track inventory or send environmental data from a sensor back to the network. It has also added a bit more memory.

…A low price is important, because it makes the technology far more accessible than RFID or other technology that today is used for tracking high-value inventory. RFID chips are built on silicon and can cost a few dollars, so aren’t practical for everyday items."

"Printing enables low-cost advantages and novel form factors not easily attained by other electronics-manufacturing methods. The applications, from consumer electronics to biomedical devices, are endless. A great deal of progress has been made recently in printed electronics, but why don't we see printed devices around us everyday, everywhere?"

"As a manufacturing method printing brings many benefits including processing over large areas at high speed or over curved surfaces. Using an additive method which places the material only where it is required greatly reduces the number of steps needed compared with a subtractive method where the material is deposited everywhere and then etched back into the required pattern. Printing also readily allows digital methods to be used (such as ink-jet), so that new layouts can be created directly from the design, enabling rapid prototyping and facile customization. Furthermore, printing should also enable manufacturing sites to be set up at a fraction of the cost of conventional semiconductor fabrication lines, allowing smaller, more diverse organizations to be involved in the manufacture of electronic components."

"ThinFilm Electronics announced the first commercially available rewriteable memory device produced using roll-to-roll printing processes...ThinFilm received its first order through one of the ten largest toy manufacturers out of Japan and hopes to apply its technology to interactive games, collector cards, RFID, and biometric applications. The company is targeting addressable applications of 40- to 128-bit memories and hopes soon to merge printed transistors together through an alliance with PARC."

“The design, which combines Thinfilm’s memory technology with PARC’s printed transistor technology, allows compact higher-density printed memories and enables new applications, including integration with other printed elements, such as sensors, power sources, and antennas. The prototypes for the addressable memory will be ready during 2011. Transfer to production is expected in 2012. There are significant horizontal markets, markets that meet the needs of a wide variety of industries, waiting for this technology to be ready.”

"PARC and Thinfilm's collaboration on next-generation printed memory solutions kicked off last year with joint design of Thinfilm 128-bit Addressable Memory, which combines Thinfilm's unique non-volatile memory technology with PARC's printed CMOS transistor technology. Given the success of the initial design phase, this next phase extends the engagement to prototyping the product for manufacturing readiness."

"Thin Film has been commercializing printed, rewritable memory using ferroelectric polymer material for application in specific markets — including toys and games — for a number of years and is developing contact‐based memory arrays for higher‐capacity applications."

"Thin Film Electronics ASA ('Thinfilm') is a publicly-listed Norwegian technology company with its head office in Oslo and product development in Linköping, Sweden. Thinfilm is a pioneer in the field of Printed Electronics, and provides fully-printed non-volatile, rewritable memory for applications in toys & games, logistics, sensor, and ID systems...

Using printing to manufacture electronic memory makes it possible to reduce the number of process steps, resulting in dramatically lower manufacturing costs, and also reduced environmental impact as compared to traditional semiconductor processes."

"PARC has been assigned a patent (7,897,439)...for an 'electronic device with unique encoding.' The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: 'An electronic device comprising a thin film transistor (TFT) array and manufacturing methods thereof according to various embodiments. Jet-printed material is deposited on selected partially formed transistors to form completed transistors... Such uniquely encoded devices have applications for encryption, identification and personalization of electronic systems.'"

"The time for PMDs might finally be at hand ... even if the first application is the humble radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags used in retail store product tracking and toll-road electronic collection systems.

As silicon technologies plunge ever deeper into nano-scale dimensions, pushing microchip densities to the level of the atom, business is looking for inexpensive alternatives to ever-more complex and costly silicon-based memory systems -- the collection of microchips that determines the size and number of programs that a computer can run simultaneously, as well as the amount of data that can be instantly processed.

...But it's Thinfilm, which has 15 years of experience in the field of non-volatile memories using functional polymers, that seems to be everywhere, working with just about everyone else in the polymer memory field.

...Researchers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) have been developing a suite of materials for making printed electronics, including sensors and transistors. PARC works with Thinfilm to make higher-capacity printed memory devices that incorporate the research center's printed transistors."